A case of salivary duct carcinoma of the parotic gland

Cytologic findings of salivary duct carcinoma (SDC) of the parotic gland obtained by fine needle aspiration are described. The aspirates contained predominantly broad flat sheets and surrounding isolated cells. These were large polygonal epithelial cells with abundant eosinophilic cytoplasm, round to oval nuclei, fine granular chromatin and predominant nucleoli. Though some cells revealed intracytoplasmic lumen on histologic sections, this was inconspicuous cytologically. The cytologic differential diagnosis included mucoepidermoid carcinoma, oncocytic carcinoma, acinic cell carcinoma, and metastatic carcinoma. The presence of ICL has only been described in one article that demonstrated it electronmicroscopically.